


Home

by ForeverFlamingFire



Series: Return to England [3]
Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Comfort, Exhaustion, F/M, Nightmares, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverFlamingFire/pseuds/ForeverFlamingFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Will returns to Sherwood...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Will rode into Sherwood Forest. For the first time, the hood of the cloak was thrown back, letting the wind do its part in keeping him awake. He directed the horse he’d stolen from a coastal town towards the camp. He knew the importance of appearing unannounced. That he’d probably initially be attacked by someone out of fear, and then be attacked out of love. He’d been on the other side of this many times. He knew what to expect from these people he counted as the most important people in his life. Once Djaq had held that role by herself with everyone else in the gang slightly lower, but with Djaq gone, the gang had taken over in his mind. It was foremost. He knew he’d be welcomed, and he couldn’t wait to see their faces when he appeared in their camp. He wondered what had changed. Had Robin replaced him and Djaq? How was their camp doing with their resident carpenter having been away? What was going on between Robin and the Sheriff and Gisbourne?

When he got to a certain point, he dismounted and tied the horse to a tree despite the fact he knew the horse wouldn’t run away. He carefully walked forward, hearing the voices of his friends flowing out of the camp. It made him smile. It was mostly relief. He was so relieved to be home, in a place where he could try to forget what had happened to him in the Holy Land. He didn’t know if he would ever be successful at forgetting the image of Djaq’s body lying in his arms until Carter had found him. He knew it was going to be hard to forget something like that. He knew Robin and Much still had their own demons to battle from their time in the Holy Land in the Crusades, and from what he had seen Robin had been impacted by the Holy Land more recently as well, with Marian’s death at Gisbourne’s hand.

He walked to the entrance of the camp watching Robin, Allan, Much, John and two people he didn’t know laughing and talking. One of the people he didn’t know was a girl with blonde hair that fell in loose waves to just beyond her shoulders. The other one was a dark skinned male. Will stayed on the outskirts of the camp, watching them. He could see the look Allan and Much were giving the girl. It was the same way he had looked at Djaq before Robin’s birthday, before they had all thought they were about to die and admitted things to each other they might not have otherwise. There had been times on his journey home when Will had cursed that day, wishing it had never happened, wishing he and Djaq had stayed only friends. But then memories of the few weeks they’d spent together in the Holy Land as a couple would come rushing back to him and he wouldn’t understand how he would want to forget such an important piece of his life.

He stayed where he was, watching his friends, torn between interrupting them by making his presence known and enjoying their company without them knowing he was there. After a few more minutes, he took a breath, let it out slowly and quietly into the forest air and then stepped out of the shadows.

“Will!” exclaimed Allan. He stood from his spot near the fire, rushing across the camp at Will. He pulled Will in for an embrace. Will allowed himself to relax into Allan. With Allan supporting most of his weight, Will made his way to the fire. Robin quickly vacated his seat as it was closest to the entrance.

“Home.” Will murmured, leaning into Allan as the rest shuffled to make room for Will and Allan near the entrance.

“Welcome home,” said Much. John gave a simple head gesture in greeting. The two new members Will didn’t know, sitting on the opposite side of the fire, looked at him curiously.

“Welcome home, Will,” said Robin, pulling him into a hug. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Thank you,” replied Will, “and I would love to be with you, but I’m exhausted.”

“I know you are,” said Robin. “I’ve done the trip twice and it never gets any easier.” He turned to Much and Allan. “Much, tend to Will’s horse.” Will raised his eyebrows, questioningly. “There’s no way you got to Sherwood Forest from the coast without one.” Will smiled. Even after all the time apart, he still felt a sense of friendship with this group. Even with the two unknown people, watching him from across the fire. “Allan, get Will to bed. He might say he’s exhausted, but I know from experience that it goes much deeper than that.”

“Robin…” Will started.

“I don’t want you talking. I want you to rest. It’s the best thing for you right now, trust me.”

“I do trust you.” He turned to the rest of the group. “I trust all of you.”

“Come on,” said Allan, standing. “You can have my bed. I’ll sleep near the fire. God knows I slept near a fire enough times before Robin found me, I know how to sleep without burning myself.”

Allan helped Will to stand. Now that he was back among friends, Will didn’t bother hiding his exhaustion. There were two people in the camp who he didn’t know, but he was too exhausted to care about them right now and he trusted the others in the camp enough to know they wouldn’t allow just anyone into the camp.

In front of this group of people, he had no fears. He’d been rescued from dying by Robin’s own hand. He’d watched as his father and Luke left Locksley and headed to Scarborough. He’d watched Gisbourne cut off his father’s hand and then he’d watched the Sheriff kill him. He’d watched Luke scramble over rooftops to return to the life Luke and his father had made for themselves there. He’d almost gone with Luke the second time, fallen to what his father had returned to Locksley for, but in the end he’d stayed with the gang. He loved his brother, but he wanted to protect him, and the best way to do that was send him back to Scarborough by himself. Not have his outlaw of a brother returning with him. This group of people had watched him go through it all, and now the person who had once convinced him to leave was supporting him across the camp.

Will allowed Allan to gently force him to sit on the bed and then help him ease out of the tunic and cloak that had marked him as a Crusader on his journey home. When Will looked up at Allan, he could see the question in Allan’s eyes.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” said Will.

Allan laid the cloak and tunic aside and sat down next to Will. “I wasn’t going to question you in any case. It would be cruel of me to do such a thing. I once tried to make you leave our friends. You’ll never find me doing something that selfish again.”

“It wasn’t selfish. You just weren’t used to the way things worked. You had been on your own for so long, relying on only yourself and at times your brother.”

“I still can’t believe I allowed him to join us.”

"You couldn’t have known things would work out the way they did. When I sent Father and Luke away the first time, I didn’t think I’d ever see them again, not unless I found myself in Scarborough. I didn’t think they’d ever return.”

Allan let a pause happen. Will stayed silent as well. “I’m not going to question you right now. None of the others are either. I’m going to make sure you rest.”

Will let Allan ease him back and then felt blankets settle across his body. Allan started to leave, but Will grabbed his arm. Allan turned back. “The two new members, you might want to have them sleep as far from me as possible.”

“Whatever you went through, you don’t have to be ashamed of it.” That’s when Allan took notice of the bandaging. He gently brushed his fingers up against it. “What happened?”

“I was injured right before I came home. I ran into a member of King Richard’s guard and he dealt with it. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” said Allan, fiercely. “You were injured.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” said Will, irritably.

“I noticed it when I greeted you,” said Robin. “I didn’t say anything because I recognized the bandaging as what King Richard’s guard does when a man gets injured in a fight. It’s quickly done, but it works.”

“Yeah,” Will replied. “Yeah, it does.”

“Rest, Will,” said Robin. “I can tell you need it.”

***

The camp was quiet. Everyone else was aside from him. Robin sat beside the burnt out fire, looking into the coals. He heard something coming from the bunks, but he ignored it. Likely it was only someone having a dream. The noise didn’t stop though.

“Djaq. Djaq. Djaq. Djaq!” The murmur grew in volume. “Djaq!” Will screamed. “Look out! Djaq!”

Robin left the campfire, moving quickly toward Will. He put a hand on his good shoulder and shook him fiercely. “Will. Will. Wake up. Will! Will!”

Will shifted, waking up. “What it?”

Robin sat down beside him. “You were having a nightmare.”

“Robin…” Will whispered. He was ashamed. Ashamed that it had been Robin to hear him, but also grateful. One of the two people in the camp who had some idea of what he was going through. The other was Much and Will had no faith in Much waking up, even if he’d been screaming in his ear.

“I have them too.” Robin’s words drew Will from his thoughts. “Mine are about Acre,” Robin continued. Will looked startled. Robin hardly spoke about Acre, not even to Much. “When I was in the Holy Land before I was sent home because of the wound Gisbourne gave me.” The last part of the sentence was full of bitterness. “I know it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“Robin…” Will started.

“Will, tell me,” Robin interrupted, cutting Will off from whatever pity was on the tip of his tongue.

“Robin, no. I can’t.”

Robin sighed, knowing where Will was coming from with his refusal, but also knowing it would do him no good in the end. “Will, talk to me. Whatever happened after we left, it’s had an effect on you.”

Will stayed silent for a few minutes, then sighed. After another moment, he began to speak. “Men came. I don’t know who they were. I don’t think they were from King Richard. Not after everything that happened in the Holy Land. Why would they come after me and Djaq?” Robin didn’t miss the detached way Will spoke her name, but he didn’t question it. “Gisbourne and the Sheriff returned to England soon after you and the rest of the gang did, so it wasn’t them personally. I don’t think it was Saracens either. Why would they kill Djaq?” Will paused, but Robin stayed silent, waiting for his friend to continue. “It probably was Gisbourne and the Sheriff,” Will continued, bitterly. “They probably paid a group to kill us, get rid of us both before we could decide to return to England.

He paused again.  “Whoever it was, I watched them kill her.” Robin gripped Will’s arm, keeping him steady. “She screamed for me and I did nothing. I couldn’t. There wasn’t time. There were more of them than the two of us could take on ourselves, even though we did stun or kill them all. I was busy, killing the ones attacking me. When they were gone, that’s when I saw her. I watched her die in front of me, Robin.” Robin pulled Will in to his side, allowing Will to use him as an anchor, something he hadn’t thought he was capable of since Marian’s death. “I knew there was nothing for me there,” Will continued. “Bassam offered to let me stay, but without Djaq, knowing King Richard was still in the Holy Land, and Prince John was causing problems here, I knew you would welcome me back. So I thanked Bassam for everything he’d done for me, for Djaq, for the gang, for you, and got on the next ship to England out of Acre.”

“Can I ask who bandaged your wound?”

Will smiled slightly. “That’s the one piece of good news. It was Carter. He didn’t die.”

Robin paused, smiling a little at the news of Carter’s survival. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said after a moment. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. If we had…

“No,” said Robin, firmly. He gripped Will’s face in his hands, grounding his friend. “You can’t do that to yourself, Will. You can’t blame yourself. It’ll eat at you like a disease. Once you start going down that path, it’s so hard to stop. Believe me.” He looked firmly into Will’s face still trapped between his hands. Neither of them spoke. Robin looked into Will’s eyes. “You’re exhausted, Will,” he said at last.

“Robin…” Will started, even as Robin pushed him back lightly.

“Will, rest. I’m the only person in this camp who knows what you’re going through right now. When we first came back, I pushed everyone away. I ran from it. I didn’t want to face it, and I was consumed by grief and anger. All I wanted to do was to kill Gisbourne. Nothing else mattered to me.”

Will looked up into Robin’s face. He could see the exhaustion etched there as well. “You should rest too, Robin.”

“I will,” Robin promised, “but right now it’s you I’m worried about. I don’t see you for weeks and then you stumble into our camp looking like you haven’t slept since the last time I saw you. You were supposed to be one of my villagers, Will. I was supposed to care for you. Let me do my job.”

Will couldn’t help but let the stern look he’d been wearing throughout his journey relax more. It felt good not having to be on his guard all the time. To be surrounded by people he trusted.


End file.
